with friends like these...or, the essence of brotherhood

The eight of you who read my blog on a regular basis may have noticed that while I used to talk about Ezra and Levi ad nauseam all the time, I've not mentioned them at all lately.

That's because I killed them.

Actually, I'm not sure how to account for the recent shift in focus. But here they are again, in a brief but vibrant cameo appearance:

Last night, the two of them were wrestling happily on the couch when things went awry, as they always do, especially as bed time approaches. I didn't see exactly what happened, but my guess is that Ezra went overboard burying Levi under the cushions. And then sitting on top of them. And then ignoring Levi's muffled screams.

When Levi finally surfaced--rubbing lint out of his eyes, his hair all mussed--he announced, "Ezra's not my friend."

"Lee-viii," Ezra said, giggling. "I'm your brother. I'm always going to be your friend."

hi, I'm Lilah, and I'm a two-nager

Dear Diary,

UGH!!! Living in this house with all these stupid bourgeois rules is bullshit. I am constantly getting in trouble for being who I want to be, and I’m totally sick of it.

I’m not allowed to hit the cats because it’s “not nice”; I can’t throw food at my mom because it makes her “feel sad”: I can't scream at the top of my lungs whenever I feel like it because it "hurts" everyone's "ears."

Since when is life all about not upsetting anyone, not ruffling anyone’s feathers, not questioning the status quo? Do they think Gloria Steinem is “nice”? Do they think Rosa Parks worried about offending people? Do they think Lisa Simpson doesn’t speak her mind? They should know as well as I do (and anyone else who spends any amount of time driving around in a liberal town), well-behaved women rarely make history. (Not to mention the fact that Iraq is Arabic for Vietnam, arms are for hugging, and that Volvo driver’s other car is a yoga mat.)

I can’t color on the walls because they have to be “clean” so the house “looks pretty.” I can’t take Levi’s toy out of his hands because it “belongs to him.” Whatever, if my parents want to subscribe to that materialist, consumerist paradigm, fine; I just wish they wouldn’t lay that trip on me.

I can’t keep blocking Ezra’s view of the television after he’s asked me to move because I have to “listen to his words.” As if his access to that misogynistic, violent, mind-numbing blather that passes for programming is somehow more important than my need to stand in that exact spot at that exact moment in time.

They’re all such selfish hypocrites.

More later….I can hear my dad calling me to “eat dinner”--just another meaningless convention they make me subscribe to. For now.

Fuck you, Mom and Dad, you conformist losers, you complacent sheep. As soon as I am potty-trained and can clothe and feed and bathe myself and talk and drive and pay my own way, I am so out of here.

the wall

When I was in my early thirties, I got very serious about running. I planned routes; I did hard runs and easy ones; I did intervals and hills and cross-training workouts; I kept track of my weekly mileage.

But I wasn't actually training for anything--just doing my usual compulsive, neurotic, solitary thing--till one day, at Stupid Daddy's urging, I finally registered for a race, chosen somewhat randomly. It was a 15k, which I knew I could finish no problem; I had done plenty of recreational runs longer than that.

Race day was blustery and frigid; we were living in Vermont, where the temperature hangs well below freezing for like six months of the year and then soars into the 50s towards the end of spring, if you're lucky, and could somebody please get me an iced tea?, I work up a sweat just thinking about it. It was early May, and if memory serves, we runners were pelted with needles of sleet here and there throughout the race.

Nonetheless, I felt confident about my performance as the race began, even with the Pemmican Bar that Stupid Daddy insisted I eat--forgetting, as he frequently did, that I weighed about 100 pounds less than he--sitting like a brick in my stomach, all 440 calories of it.

I realize as I write this that it sounds as though I'm preparing you for another one of these stories. Lucky for everyone involved, past and present, I'm not. The point I'm trying to make, in an incredibly long-winded way, is that I started out strong and faded fast.

It's the classic novice racer's mistake, and knowing it didn't stop me from making it. You get so pumped with adrenaline that you just fly along those first few miles, thinking you can keep up the pace, or not even realizing how fast you're actually going, or some combination of the two, only to have things slow down dramatically as the race progresses. People pass you, and more people pass you, and by the time you cross the finish line, you're cooked.

And the point of all that is to explain that I feel like something analogous has happened with this whole NaBloPoMo thing. After a strong and inspired start, I've hit a wall. It's only the 12th of November and I'm hobbling along, folks, hobbling along.

But I think if I take this middle stretch easy, I'll be able to finish--and possibly even finish with without having to crawl.

Lighter posting this week, therefore, beginning now.

everybody's doing it

I had this whole long post that I was working on, and midway through, I realized there was no way I was going to be able to finish it in the time I have this evening (I hear Lilah crying for Mommy right now) and also have it conform to my stylistic trifecta of eloquence, wisdom, and wit.

And so, because she did it, and she did it, and she did it too, I'm posting something that I've uncovered from my writing vault.

I went through this period when I was in my twenties where I would get woken up at 5:30 by my dog, Moxie, and have to take her on an emergency-multiple-dump walk around the block. She was on this special high-fiber diet that was supposed to help manage some intestinal issues that I later ended up ignoring because I grew weary of waking up at 5:30 and cleaning up three rounds of shit on any given stroll, and look, it's 12 years later and she's still alive.

So I'd walk her and then return to my apartment, brew a pot of caffeinated coffee, and drink it and smoke cigarettes and write poetry. (Go ahead, roll your eyes. But hey, at least I didn't wear a beret!)

During this same period of time, I was also dating here and there, meaning I would meet a guy and immediately go to bed with him and then, immediately following that, fall madly in love. (Yes, I know, it's just one cliche after another with me.)

So there was this one guy, okay--and let me just say, no matter what follows, please remember that he was the one who asked me out--who worked at the video store down the street, and we had a thing for a while. He was absolutely adorable and really fucking funny, and that was enough for me. He had also just graduated from college three months earlier and was six years younger than I, but that's neither here nor there.

He had had a serious girlfriend in college, but the relationship didn't survive the graduation. Nonetheless, because I was even more neurotic and jealous then than I am now, I found the ghost of her presence problematic. She was a photography major, and in his tiny room in the apartment he shared with two of his college buddies, there were a few beautiful black-and-white photographs of him, the circumstances of which I felt the need to grill him endlessly about, and also, just wondering, was he really over her for sure? And did he like me more than he had liked her? And wasn't I way more satisfying in the sack than that frigid bitch?

So there was this one picture, and I wrote a poem about it after we broke up. (By the way, can you believe we broke up? Who wouldn't want to be my boyfriend forever? He obviously had some issues he needed to work through.)

I printed out the poem and gave it to him all folded up at the video store one day, just as an FYI, you know, because he knew I was trying to be a writer, and he had his own literary aspirations, and he, like, totally took it the wrong way and thought I was stalking him. As if.

The thing is, I kind of like it:

Eye for an Eye

For the crime of stealing your hands
so beautifully right off the table
at a diner in Maine, among
plates and ketchup, sun streaming in,
I was jealous of the camera.

How freely your fingers accompliced themselves,
poised over crumbs like waves licking sand,
the affronting intimacy
with which your rings shone, as if
polished. And though love brings on
a certain flatness, the forms appeared
fully nevertheless, seduced out of
shadow by an expert eye.

The crime of returning to the scene
I’d never entered, seating myself
opposite, I was forced to commit, guilty of
knowing eggs scrambled, dry white,
recognizing the ragged cuffs
from which your hands emerged,
driven to find and steal back what I could.

it's true what they say, about the taste and the no accounting for it

I'm glad yesterday's photo essay was such a hit; I was thinking in the middle of the night about all the ways I could have made it that much funnier. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately), I can only remember being upset that with all that thumbs-upping, I hadn't thought to make reference to The Fonz.

I suppose, rather than posting my entry in haste, I should have just sat on it.

Did you know that one year for Channukah Chanukkah Hannukah Hanukkah Hannuka Bxxxralllzxjllsfj the Festival of Lights, my parents gave me a Fonzie tee-shirt?

I think I was nine years old, and I was in heaven. The shirt itself was this hideous pinkish-beige, and the material, I'm certain, 50/50 at best. But it had this enormous square picture of The Fonz sitting astride his motorcycle, looking as cool as a 5' 6 1/2" Jewish guy could possibly look ever, and I wore that thing again and again, until the image peeled away, completely fractured.

I really have no idea what drew me to Fonzie, except that crushing on him is (inexplicably) what all the prepubescent girls were doing. And sometimes, when you're nine, you follow the crowd, even though your heart belongs to Mr. Clean.

Now that guy, all polished and buff and slightly naughty with that earring in his left ear: I swear to god, he made me swoon.

go, dog(faceboy), go! a photo essay with zero visual consistency

I have a Flickr friend named Leslie who just this past summer finished the same MFA program I graduated from several years ago. I've known her just a few months but feel very connected to her anyway--in part because she puts her "self " out there all the time with an endless stream of incredibly inventive photos, including many self-portraits, along with hilarious, thoughtful, biting, and vulnerable written commentary, and in part because, with her willingness to just go for it creatively, she has been a role model to me.

Leslie is a photographer, poet, essayist, mosaicist, baker, and I'm sure a bunch of other things I don't know about or have forgotten, not to mention wife to the aging but still hot Mr. Dogfaceboy and mother to an exquisite girl named Serena. She does all these things with honesty, humor, intensity, wisdom, and passion.

Just today, Leslie broke the truly awesome news on Flickr that Simon & Schuster (you've heard of them, right?) has bought her book about cake.

Even though I've done like two self-portraits in my life and have no idea what I'm doing, and even though I hadn't managed to shower yet (what a surprise), I wanted to do a congratulatory self-portrait to post on Flickr. Needless to say, my shoot didn't turn out as planned.



This was supposed to be a wide-eyed, mouth-agape hallelujah shot, but I look as frightened as I do happy. Also, am I trying to chomp down on that border there and just eat my way out of the shot, or what?



Hey, Leslie! Way to go! Thumbs up! Except I appear to be picking my nose.



Okay, thumb is up but nowhere near nostril; that's great. But am I now about to dig something out of my ear? And why is my hand bent so awkwardly?



Aha! I can hold the camera with my left hand and do a much more flattering right-handed thumbs-up. But wait a minute; is someone giving me head at the same time?



Switching my approach entirely, I decided to shoot myself spotting something up in the sky, because Leslie's flying high right now, because she loves birds, and also because a good friend of Leslie's (one who happens to be a skilled photographer) posted this congratulatory photo.

But again, I seem more confused and concerned than anything else. And because I'm so close in, it's not really clear that I'm looking skyward. So how about going wide?



Oops.



Okay, I'm in focus, which is nice. But I think you'll agree that I look too much like I'm pointing out the gutter problems to the roofer.



Getting frustrated.

I decided to go back to the thumb idea, because it occurred to me that I could actually put the camera down and use both hands. Maybe two thumbs instead of one would render the tone twice as jubilant?


Barely a thumb in sight! Not to mention, once again, that small technical problem called lack of focus, which seems to keep biting me in the ass. Let's try that again.



Yes, thumbs. Two fabulous thumbs. Christ, I'm all thumbs! And yet. Focus, woman, focus!



For no reason I can divine, I returned to the hand-held camera and one thumb concept--perhaps because I realized that I hadn't fully mined it for all its creative possibilities. Here it is with a twist: the distraction of one of our cats cruising by.

And then I had to go pick up the kids. That's all I got for you, dogfaceboy, except this: CONGRATU-FUCKING-LATIONS!!!

100 things

1. I’m not crazy about taking showers, but I absolutely hate taking baths.
2. My father died of ALS. It was awful.
3. My mom is still alive and well, though convinced, at any given point in time, that she’s got at least three ailments requiring immediate medical attention.
4. I love clipping my toenails.
5. I also love cows.
6. I was old when I lost my virginity.
7. Like, really old.
8. Okay, I was 22. At least I was in love! That’s more than you sluts can say for yourselves.
9. I was also late getting my period (18—just think of all the sex I could have had without worrying about getting pregnant!), and late getting my driver’s license (21).
10. Otherwise, I’ve always been very punctual.
11. I sound like an idiot when I talk; on paper, the situation improves dramatically.
12. I have a terrible sense of direction.
13. I loathe the words purse and panties.
14. My best friend is a man.
15. I haven’t read any of the Harry Potter books.
16. I was 11 weeks pregnant at my wedding.
17. All three of my kids were born by c-section: the first, because of fetal distress; the second, because of failure to progress (labor for two-and-a-half days, stuck at eight centimeters for 4 ½ hours); the third, scheduled because after two c-sections it’s hard to find anyone who will let you try, but coincidentally I went into labor the night before, which made it all okay in my mind, and besides, by then I’d gotten used to the routine, and was also kind of looking forward to the morphine.
18. I had my tubes tied after Lilah was born. I mean right after. As a gynecologist I saw earlier on the pregnancy put it, “We’ve got you opened up anyway. Your uterus is literally right there in our hands. We might as well get it taken care of at the same time.”
19. I always pictured fallopian tubes being tied in a pretty little bow. The smell of burning flesh as I was lying there in the OR cleared that image out of my head.
20. I absolutely loved being pregnant.
21. Sometimes I wish I had more babies just so I could be pregnant again, and also so I could put to use all the names on my list, but other than that, I’m all set.
22. Lilah was not planned. We considered having an abortion.
23. When I was a kid, I wanted braces so badly I used to walk around with a string bean bent around my teeth. Or a paper clip.
24. I also really wanted freckles and glasses.
25. I’m only 5’2”, and it sucks ass.
26. I weigh a lot more than anyone guesses I do.
27. Muscle, baby, muscle.
28. I’ve never puked from drinking, though I’ve certainly done my fair share of drinking.
29. I’ve also done more than my fair share of puking.
30. That’s bulimia for you. So glamorous.
31. I have nice calves.
32. I need a lot of sleep, and I usually get too little, so I nap frequently to compensate. But no more than once a day. I’m disciplined like that.
33. I never went trick-or-treating as a kid. My dad wouldn’t let us because Halloween isn’t a Jewish holiday.
34. I’m Jewish.
35. For decades, I had recurring dreams about the Holocaust.
36. I’m really nosy.
37. I saw Steven Wright at a bar in Cambridge once. I was drunk enough to go up to him and tell him how brilliant I thought he was. I think he just thought I was annoying.
38. I’ve been hospitalized twice for depression.
39. I used to be able to bench press my weight.
40. I have a tattoo on my left hip. It’s a butterfly, but not at all fabulous like butterflies are. It looks more like a moth.
41. I wish I hadn’t gotten it.
42. Oh well.
43. I used to think I was boring, but I’m over that. The tattoo really helped with that one.
44. That’s a joke.
45. I don’t believe in God.
46. Maybe that’s why I’m afraid of dying.
47. I’m afraid of a lot of things.
48. I get hot very easily and cold very easily. I’m comfortable at 68 degrees.
49. I hate playing cards and board games. Oh my god, chess—kill me now.
50. My first car was a Peugeot, a hand-me-down from my dad. It was rear-wheel drive and got stuck in half an inch of snow, but man, was it feisty.
51. I’m totally not into cars.
52. I have never liked Saturday Night Live.
53. I started reading when I was three, or so my mom says.
54. I don’t know if I’ll ever feel happy doing whatever it is that I do.
55. Halfway there. Shit, this is harder than I imagined.
56. I panic when I have to tip people; I’m always worried I’m doing the math wrong, and I’m going to end up giving them too little.
57. My father’s father was a cab driver in New York City.
58. My mother’s father was a tailor.
59. My father’s mother has an IQ of like a million.
60. Yes, she has outlived her son.
61. Crying makes me feel good, so long as I don’t catch sight of myself in a mirror.
62. I’ve always wanted to be famous.
63. Teenagers intimidate me. But I find them intriguing as well.
64. See, I could have split that up and made it count for two.
65. I make things harder for myself than they could be.
66. I’m my own worst enemy.
67. I dressed up as my own worst enemy once for Halloween (when I was all grown up and no longer having to comply with my dad’s shtetl restrictions). I had arms coming out of my sweatshirt, strangling me. Nobody got it—even after they asked what I was.
68. Envy. Ugh. I struggle with that.
69. I’m not good at being bossed around.
70. I’m a serious picker, which is why I was bummed that none of my babies had cradle cap.
71. I’m always looking for the right lighting for popping zits.
72. The fitting room I was in today was perfect. I came out looking really blotchy.
73. Once when I was working as a cashier at Doubleday Bookstore in New York, this woman I was ringing up said to me, “Honey, what are you doing to your skin?!”
74. I kind of looked at her like, WTF? Except it was the eighties and we didn’t have that phrase yet.
75. And then she said, “I’m sorry. My husband’s a dermatologist.”
76. I smoked a pack a day for a few years.
77. I quit when I met Stupid Daddy.
78. We were standing in line to see Jackie Brown, and he said, “You know, I’d kiss you a lot more if your breath didn’t reek of cigarettes.” And that was all it took.
79. Now I can’t even be in the same zip code as somebody who is smoking, but oh my god, did I love it back then.
80. I just finished my second beer.
81. Diagramming sentences was one of my favorite assignments in school.
82. Stupid Daddy taught me how to shoot a gun a few years ago, and I kicked ass.
83. I dropped the gun down on the ground when I was done, though, which is apparently a serious no-no.
84. Especially when there are kids around.
85. I really want to be finished with this fucking thing.
86. When I’m about to cry, the inside of my nose starts to sting.
87. So now whenever I find something moving, I touch my nose, and Stupid Daddy knows what it means.
88. I do love that man.
89. I dropped out of cooking school in the first semester.
90. I had a routine (non-fasting) cholesterol test during the first few weeks, when we were doing eggs every which way.
91. It was somewhere in the mid-300s.
92. Scary, right? But I was young and didn’t care. Now I take that shit to heart.
93. Except that I haven’t had my cholesterol tested in almost ten years.
94. But at least I don’t smoke anymore!
95. I hope to age gracefully.
96. It’s not looking good so far.
97. Three more and suddenly everything matters, you know? How many slots did I squander? What tidbits have I left out?
98. It’s a metaphor for something, I think.
99. I love the smell of skunk.
100. I was fluent in Hebrew as a kid, but I’ve forgotten it all. Shalom!